


The Long Way Home

by My_Barbaric_Yawp



Series: The Long Way Home [2]
Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: F/M, Family Feels, Gen, Growing Up, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-14 02:45:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17500091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Barbaric_Yawp/pseuds/My_Barbaric_Yawp
Summary: Eventually, Nick figures out how to parent the most powerful girl in the world. Or Diana, growing up.Originally posted on fanfiction.net





	1. Chapter 1

When she's eight—or at least, when she looks eight, feels twelve and has actually been in the world for five years—she almost gets expelled. If the school had a choice, she would be expelled, but then where would she go? There was nowhere else on earth that she could study and even the headmistress could see that was a problem for the world at large, one way or another.

But still, the headmistress thought everyone could use a break, and it would take a bit to fix the small black hole in the kitchen anyway, so Diana sits in the headmistress's office, kicking her feet and waiting for her parents to come take her home.

But it isn’t her mom or dad that comes to get her this time. It’s Nick, and he doesn't look nearly as amused as her father would have been or as worried and sympathetic as her mother tended to get. He looks...grim.

"Are you here to behead me?"

The headmistress gasps a little then, but Nick just sighs and looks down at her with those stupid big eyes that seem to make her mother go gushy and dumb.

"Do you think I could?"

Diana thinks about that for a moment. "No," she says, "I don't think so."

"Then I guess I better take you home. Your mother's worried sick."

Nick smiles then, a small smile just for her, and Diana understands a little bit of why her mother goes gushy and dumb for him.

"Let's get your stuff."

"I sent it home already. I didn't feel like carrying it."

"Right. Of course. Let's go home."

"Do you want me to send us home too?"

Nick gives her a long, unreadable look, and then he holds out a hand for her to grasp. "You know what, kid, let's take the long way home."

So they do.

They go to the park, where the sky is sunny and lovely, and she chases the ducks and sends them flying with little sparks out of her fingers. Nick laughs, but he also says, "Kid, how would you like to be chased?"

And then she remembers, she really hadn't liked it—being on the run with his mother. Kelly had always been looking over her shoulder and saying, "Sweetheart, be careful," and "Honey, I need you to be quiet," and "Diana, please don't levitate anything right now." Some days she misses Kelly, but she never misses the look she'd get every time they had to leave town.

On their way through the park, they find a Shakespeare production just starting and stop for a few scenes. It’s Macbeth, and when they move on to the playground, she wants to know why the witches were so ugly.

"Mommy's not ugly. Eve's not ugly. Don't they know any real witches?"

"Probably not. Sometimes they make characters look ugly because their actions are ugly."

"All they did was answer his questions! They didn't tell him to kill anyone."

"No, but that's this thing about information. Everyone makes different choices about what to do with it, and you can't control their choices. Sometimes you can't even control the information."

"I could," Diana says darkly.

Nick stops then, and she has to turn around to see him. He crouches down to meet her eyes, and she isn't sure if that’s a nice feeling or not.

"You probably could control people, Diana—you have the power. But you'd have to do it every second of every day for the rest of your life. And they would be your responsibility every second of every day for the rest of your life. And if you ever forgot for a moment, they would do everything in their power to be free. And if you ever wanted to take a break for even a moment, you would be in danger. And you're tough, kid, and brilliant, but that sounds exhausting to me."

Diana scowls at him. "Is this supposed to be a teachable moment, or something?"

Nick laughs and pats a strand of hair back behind her ear. "Or something. But the truth is I've made a lot of decisions for a lot of people since I became a Grimm, and I've never made an easy one, Diana. I don't recommend it as a lifestyle, if you can help it."

"Are you worried about me, or are you worried about everyone else?"

"I worry about everyone. That's what happens when you take on a responsibility like mine."

"That doesn't sound like fun."

"Not always."

"I'm not a Grimm."

"No, you're not. But you have a powerful gift and that's your responsibility. Only you can decide how to use it."

"I'm only a kid."

"I know. But you'll be thirty before any of us know it, so you might as well start thinking about it now."

"Can we get ice cream, while I think about it?"

"Definitely."

They go to the ice cream shop around the corner and sit in the sun outside the shop in companionable silence. Diana spells the air around her cone to stop the ice cream melting, and Nick watches her shiver a little while goosebumps break out on her hand. Eventually, she gives up and the ice cream melts, running down her fingers.

"There's no right answer, is there?"

"You're smart, kid."

"I don't like it."

"No one does. It's part of being human."

"Human is overrated."

"So is magic."

Eventually the sun sets, and Nick bundles her up into the front seat where she promptly falls asleep for the ride home. She wakes up as they pull into the garage, but stays quiet and still. It’s kind of nice to be carried up to bed by a man who chooses not to behead you on a daily basis.

He tucks her into bed while her mother hovers in the background, bursting with questions and happy to have her home and safe and just there. It feels good to be loved like that—wholly and without question—but it’s also good to be loved by Nick, who worries about everyone, all the time, including her.


	2. Chapter 2

When she's sixteen, for all intents and purposes, her father has to bail her out of jail. It's embarrassing for both of them, especially when he asks, “What the hell were you thinking?”, and she has no answer but a shrug and a measured stare.

He sighs and shakes his head. “Maybe your mother can get through to you. Let's go.”

But she stays in the cell and takes a deep breath. “I just want to talk to Nick right now.” Her father’s face ripples, and she hurries to soften the blow. “It's, like, a Grimm thing. Sorry, Dad.”

Nick arrives a few minutes later, as if he’s been standing at the elevator doors all morning just waiting for the call.

“Kid, what happened? Are you okay?”

She feels a little warmer under his worried eyes, which is ridiculous. She's not a child anymore.

“Can we go to the park? I'm kind of sick of these bars, and it's cold in here.”

He shrugs off his jacket and holds it out to wrap around her shoulders. She feels warm, again, and safe, and it's so stupidly satisfying she almost cries.

He swipes a tissue box off the duty sergeant's desk on the way out of the precinct and hands it to her as they reach the park bench and she starts to sniffle.

“Diana, what happened?”

She's sobbing now, and it's so, so stupid that she can't find the words. He pulls her into his arms, and she cries on his shoulder like a little girl.

Finally, she finds a breath, then another, then— 

“There's this boy.”

Nick sighs and pats her shoulder, infinitely more awkward all of a sudden, but still determined to comfort her. “Would you rather talk to your mother about this?”

“Not really.” Diana blows her nose loudly and feels better for it. “Mom's not exactly the poster child for normal behavior in romantic relationships.”

“That's not nice.”

“She's not nice. I mean she's amazing, and I love her, but she's a bitch, and she’d kill anyone that tried to take us away from her without a second thought. That's the best thing about her. You know I'm right, that's why you're perfect together.”

Nick sits with that for a minute and then shrugs. “You're not wrong. She's better than she used to be. But then so am I. We're better together than apart.”

“I know.”

Nick smiles and squeezes her shoulder a little. “Is this really about your mom?”

Diana shakes her head. “This is about me. I suck at this. I'm...broken.”

“No, you're not.”

“I met a boy. I told him I liked him. He doesn't like me.”

“Well, he's an idiot, but you knew that.”

“Is he? I'm a freak. I can stop his heart with one look.”

“You didn't, right?”

Diana gives him a look under her bangs, and Nick laughs in relief. “Just checking.”

“I keyed his car. It seemed like the normal thing to do.”

“Diana…”

“Well, I didn't kill him or cast a love spell or curse his girlfriend, so it's really not that bad in comparison.”

“That doesn't make it right.”

“I know. This sucks.”

They sit there in silence overlooking the pond and the ducks and the little kid running back and forth to throw bread into the water with a joy she's not sure she will ever understand.

“I don't think I'm normal. I don't know if I'm built for this stuff.”

“None of us are normal.”

“They're normal,” she says, nodding to the mother and child by the pond. “They have a normal life. I'm never going to have that.”

“Do you want that?”

“I want the option.”

Nick sighs. “You have options, kid. We all do. Your mother and I chose to love each other, in spite of a lot of things, and Monroe and Rosalee chose to make a life together, despite a lot of challenges, and you can choose to make whatever life you want, I promise.”

After a moment of quiet, she finally asks the question, the one that she'd been thinking about all night while staring at ceiling of a police cell and trying not to give in to the temptation to spell the air around her for warmth.

“How did you deal with it? With Juliette, when she didn't know what you were, and you couldn't tell her?”

Nick sighs again, deeper this time, like it still hurts a little to talk about it. “Poorly, I think is the answer to that. I dealt with it poorly and that put her in danger, and I think I knew even then that your mother might be the woman for me, one way or another. Of course her trying to kill a lot of people that I loved didn't help, but it's not like I didn't reciprocate.”

“Do you think there was any way you could have been happy with a Kehrseite?”

“Can you make a life with someone who doesn't know who you are? Not just who you are, but what you are at the very center of your being? I tried, but no matter how much you might love someone, it gets lonely.”

“I can do lonely. I just want to be normal.”

Nick looks at her, solemn and thoughtful as always, and then he kisses her forehead and pulls her close. “You’re not alone, kid. And no one's normal. Not even Kehrseite. We're all weird and different, and the trick is to find someone whose differences work with yours. That takes time, but you have a lot of it.”

“Do I?” She asks quietly, voicing her deepest worry for the first time. “Nick, I might be thirty in a couple of years. What happens then?”

Nick pulls her in tighter, resting his chin on her head and trying not to show how much he worries about that, too. “I don't know, kid. Today, you're sixteen. Let's take it a day at a time.”


	3. Chapter 3

It takes longer than expected to reach thirty, and she's grateful for the time she's been given to grow up and come to terms with her powers in the intervening years. It helps to be far away from Portland, where no one knows her parents or her step-father, the Grimm.

There are days, weeks even, when she pretends she's just a normal girl, making a living at an office downtown, going for drinks with girl friends, paying her bills and saying hello to the neighbors every week as they put out the trash. It's so...normal.

It feels like freedom.

But some days, it's boring. So when a friend of a friend suggests a blind date with another friend of a friend, she accepts. It's not like she needs to worry about being murdered by a stranger.

And she really doesn't, because Dan is lovely and handsome, and his laugh is deep and rich, and it makes her tingle and want to send little sparks out of her finger tips.

But she doesn't. She learned that lesson years ago.

But still, they go on dates, and he calls her afterward, and they talk about everything that they can talk about, and it's so nice, she almost forgets she's not normal.

But then at dinner on the fourth date, a waiter drops a tray, and she flinches while glass shatters behind her. She looks up, and Dan's eyes are pitch black and glossy. He looks like death, and she gasps for breath before it hits her, and she starts to laugh. Deep, rolling belly laughs that made her shoulders shake and send her gasping for more air.

“Diana? What the hell?”

But she can't stop laughing. It’s just too perfect, too utterly perfect, and she can't stop laughing.

“It's not funny! I had no idea you were a hexenbiest. Did you know I was a Grimm? Did you plan this? Are you trying to kill me?”

Diana sobers slightly, the laugh becoming a giggle that pops out again and again. “Of course not. Do you really think it would take me three dates to kill you? I could have had you at hello.”

“Christ… Is this a love spell? Did you curse me?”

“Are you in love with me?”

Dan groans and puts his face in his hands. “I can't believe I'm on a date with a hexenbiest.”

“Well, it's not like I went out searching for a Grimm, either.”

He stares at her for a bit, before taking a sip of wine and holding onto the glass for comfort.

“Doesn't this bother you? We're supposed to be enemies.”

Diana shrugs, then takes up her own glass. “Some of my favorite people are Grimms. That side of the family's always a good time.”

“Family?”

“Step-dad, aunt, grandmother. Probably my brother or sister, it's too soon to tell for sure.”

“Christ.”

“No, Burkhardt. They're very sweet. When you're not trying to kill anyone, anyway.”

“You're Nick Burkhardt’s kid?”

“Kind of? Yes. He's my dad, too.”

“Too?”

“You really don't want to know. Have you met Nick, then?”

“Met? No. But everyone knows about him. He runs the northwest.”

“Protects is probably a better word. He tends to leave the admin to my mom and Rosalee.”

Dan blinks and puts his wine down, attempting finality in his tone. “Diana, this is nuts.”

“No, I'm pretty sure it makes perfect sense,” she says, feeling more sure about this than she has about anything in a long time. “I was never going to be happy with a normal guy anyway. What on earth would we talk about?”

“Literally anything else.”

“And is that working for you?”

Dan looks away and then back to her. “I thought it was.”

“Are you lonely?”

“Sometimes. Are you?”

Diana sits back then. It's a question she's been dodging for years. A question that lurks behind every phone conversation with her mother and every check in text from Nick. She's built a life here, but she's built it on a lie, and no one on this coast knows the first thing about who she really is. That used to feel like freedom. Now it feels lonely.

“I think I’m homesick. I came here to have a normal, boring, human life, but I miss my crazy, messy, wesen/Grimm family.”

“I wish I had a family to miss,” says Dan, and he looks sad and subdued. Like he’s never had a ice cream cone with someone who loves him on the way home from a really bad day.

“Do you want to meet mine?”

It's a big ask for a fourth date, but she’s not normal, and maybe it's okay to embrace that. There's only one way to find out.

“I would like to meet your folks. A Grimm and a hexenbiest, that's gotta be a first.”

“It probably is,” she says, matching his smile with a small one of her own. “Maybe it won't be the last.”

After dinner, he walks her to her apartment, and they share stories from their lives—the real stories this time, full of blood and struggle and good moments, too. Moments of love and loss in the least human of faces.

At her door, he leans in for a kiss. It's sweet and full of promise for tomorrow, and she thinks she could get used to this, if she's lucky enough.

“I'll see you soon then?”

“Definitely.”

Upstairs, she calls her parents.

“Hey, kid. Everything okay over there?” It's Nick, just home from a late night at work and sounding rough but dear on the other side of the country.

“Everything's fine, Nick. I just missed you guys like crazy.”

“Don't tell your mother,” he says with a smile she can hear, “she'll want to move next door and then you'll be sick of us.”

“That would be nice. I was thinking about coming to visit. I might bring a friend.”

“Oh?” Nick isn't a detective for nothing.

“He's a Grimm.”

There's utter silence on the other end, then a sudden burst of laughter. “Of course he is.”

“I want you to meet him.”

“Diana, you can bring anyone or anything you like. Just come home soon. I wasn't kidding about your mother moving over there.”

When she gets off the phone, she's alone in her apartment, and she feels more alive and awake than she has in years. Maybe she's ready now. Maybe it's time to take the long way home.


End file.
